Tag: Landscape

Contradictory Utopia

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In preparation for my upcoming travels to the West Coast next month, I was looking back at the images of Portland, Oregon’s Pearl District. It seems representative of some of the common features of West Coast cities: newer architecture that incorporates a mixture of scales (human vs. superhuman), modern interpretations of some more traditional forms (like the bridge, which resembles a traditional Japanese zig-zag bridge), and a generally utopian, “city of the future!” vibe.

Utopia: Portland

Perhaps no scene better emphasized the sometimes-contradictory nature of a growing city than this one: a yoga class in a sunny park on a summer afternoon, across the street from a shadowed construction site. Juxtapositions are rarely so literal.

Yoga and Construction

Campus, Bay, and City

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The view from atop Berkeley’s Campanile is a nostalgic one, with San Francisco and Oakland popping up in the distance above the sprawl. Walking along those broad, slightly cracked, and sun-baked pathways of Berkeley’s campus never quite felt natural, though. Can a place magnified beyond human scale feel that way?

Campus, Bay, and City

Full River

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Water levels in the Raquette River through Stone Valley (site of some excellent rocks) were quite high, leading to normally dry areas (like this one) overflowing with impromptu waterfalls. Surfaces and water levels in various areas didn’t want to match up, and made for a feeling like the whole river had been “assembled” out of order.

Full River

Lightning Over Carl Sagan’s House

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As a scientist and educator in the 21st century, it’s difficult to overstate the role that Carl Sagan played in shaping my worldview. When I traveled to Ithaca, NY for the first time this week (for a chemistry conference, naturally), I wasn’t planning on any kind of specific pilgrimage. Nonetheless, I found myself standing on a tall bridge above a gorge, watching the lights of Ithaca and the flashes of lightning in the distant clouds.

I didn’t have my normal Nikon with me. I didn’t have my tripod with me. I made do. How often do you get to photograph lightning over Carl Sagan’s house?

Lightning Over Carl Sagan's House(It’s the house on the right, by the way.)

Camp Canaras

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I spent the early part of this week at St. Lawrence University’s Camp Canaras (like Saranac Lake spelled backwards) for a retreat. Cold and rain tamped down expectations of canoeing; instead, I had an early morning hike in the sound-dampened world of fog.

Canaras Islands

At night, the camp took on the otherworldly quiet of the Adirondacks after dark.

Canaras Office

Ending on Little River

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Friday marked the end of exams, and students and faculty alike celebrated by checking canoes and kayaks out of this little boat house on St. Lawrence’s campus. (If it’s true that our school resembles a ski resort in the winter, it also resembles a summer camp during the warmer months of the year.) Nothing really says the year is done (and grading with it) like floating along in complete relaxation.

Ending on Little River

Edge of the Big Forest

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In this particular corner of Connecticut in early spring, the rain and snow combined to make the perfect storybook fog. This image is so quaint and charming, I could swear I’d seen it somewhere before.

But this brings me to another idea: those particular locations in landscape photography so scenic that they are literally ubiquitous. Take the tunnel view in Yosemite, or shots of the Golden Gate Bridge from the Marin Headlands, or downtown Manhattan as seen from the top of Rockafeller Center as examples: is it even possible to make an original composition from such a photographically saturated place? But these places are also photographically saturated for a reason: they’re really, really pretty. Where does that trade-off between originality and beauty fall?

Edge of the Big Forest

Fire Trail and Fire Sky

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Fire trails seem like a friendly, common, down-to-earth feature of many California hillsides. There’s a strange context alongside the blazing sky and the busy city in the distance. When I look farther off and see the Golden Gate Bridge and Angel Island, the juxtaposition feels only more emphasized.

But perhaps I like that vision. We build things both grand and humble.

Fire Trail and Fire Sky

Icicles, or Almost Canada

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Dotting the road to Ogdensburg’s bridge to Canada are tiny, abandoned houses like this one. It’s rather charming, and just a bit sad, but mostly it reminds me of Neal Stephenson’s Anathem, and the obversations that a society can retreat from the frontiers and back into the cities over time. Sprawl and civilization are not inevitable.

Icicles, or Almost Canada

Snowed-Outing Club

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The St. Lawrence University Outing Club always has something interesting set up outside their house, no matter the season. Even when they’re away on break, the frames and supports and ground-work for some crazy stunt of the future are ready. This peaceful moment seemed uncharacteristically placid and I just had to capture it.

Snowed-Outing Club

Edge of Zulu Nyala

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It’s the first day of class for St. Lawrence today, so I’m getting ready and looking towards the future and so forth, but it’s also a great time to look back on the past. It’s been more than a year since I visited South Africa, and when it’s -15ºF on the walk to work, thinking about the Zulu Nyala game reserve can bring back some pleasant memories. It’s the details that stick with me: the fences made from whole sticks of wood, rather than boards, and that particular red color of the soil.

Edge of Zulu Nyala